setting up an air compresor to be used for occasional sand blasting, running air tools, perhaps some non cosmetically critical parts painting.

I have seen air dryers that are over 1000.00,,,,, in lieu of spending that much
any one familiar with this unit?
Would this be worth the cost, re fils are about 20.00
I live in central Indiana, lots of humidity in the summer time

I had one of the DeVilbiss units. A friend of mine had an "air dryer" Made from an old refridgerator and an old LARGE radiator type cooler, mounted in the fridge. Air in one side, then a drain mounted to the lower part of the cooler. Then out the other side of the fridge. A regular air seperator and cheapy filter. Worked great for paint jobs.

Generally what you will see is a pretty good dryer at the end of about 50 feet of copper line with a drain or several if there are several copper line loops. Myself, I'm not interested in Eastwood's overpriced Chinese "treasures". This, below, is what I used successfully to paint cars in the summer. Others have more elaborate and much more expensive set ups depending on how much air tool work they do.

The first filter is a Harbor Freight $20 to knock out the dirt and big moisture slugs, the second is a Sharpe self draining filter which was about $80 if I recall correctly. I also have a vertical leg with a 90* and a gate drain valve(shown) before the filters and one just after the compressor feed to the actual line. There is also a little filter right at the compressor to remove any possible oil, but it has never shown any. After this photo was taken, I added a good pressure regulator at the outlet for my initial spray gun adjusting then did the final with this removable gauge instead of hanging it off the gun and messing up the balance and flexibility in tight spots.

You could do a home made air dryer by using a NEW trans cooler such as http://www.jegs.com/i/Perma-Cool/771/1015/10002/-1.
Make a stand that holds the coil in a vertical position with the tubes running horizontally.
Pipe air in at the top, out at the bottom, then to a water trap and on to your filter/regulator bank.
Set the coil up out on the lawn and let the garden hose run on it from top to bottom when painting.

Alternately you could mount it to a box fan and move air thru it but you won't get as much temp drop as with the water.

You could do a home made air dryer by using a NEW trans cooler such as http://www.jegs.com/i/Perma-Cool/771/1015/10002/-1.
Make a stand that holds the coil in a vertical position with the tubes running horizontally.
Pipe air in at the top, out at the bottom, then to a water trap and on to your filter/regulator bank.
Set the coil up out on the lawn and let the garden hose run on it from top to bottom when painting.

Alternately you could mount it to a box fan and move air thru it but you won't get as much temp drop as with the water.

i thought of putting a trans cooler between the pump and tank, running a fan on it, and putting a ac-dc converter on one of the 120v legs to the compressor.

in using an oil cooler or a radiator,
I like the though of using a 12v electiic fan
at what level does air pressure get to be a problem, for bursting,,,,?
I will be using the air supply also to power a sand blast unit, so pressure will be important

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